TellSomebodyNow is a sustainable community awareness campaign originally created in response to South Florida’s high rate of HIV/AIDS.  The most recent CDC statistics reveal that Miami is now #1 in new diagnosed cases of AIDS. Nearly 70 percent of all people with HIV/AIDS are Latino and Blacks/African-Americans—which constitutes a large part of the South Florida and Florida International University (FIU) community.

 

This campaign started in January 2008, when Allan Richards, Associate Dean and Associate Professor at FIU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, charged his multimedia class with developing a website about HIV/AIDS. That assignment led to a trip to the epicenter of the epidemic with two journalism students, which resulted in a 30-minute documentary, "Lessons from South Africa."

 

Inspired by the South African media's creative coverage of the disease, Assistant Professor Kate MacMillin and her multimedia students produced a four-part dramatic Web series about a 38-year-old HIV positive Latina that was posted on The Miami Herald's website. MacMillin's series in turn led to a gripping Q&A session about HIV/AIDS between FIU students and clinicians from the Miami-Dade County Health Department.

 

Richards and MacMillin's work on HIV/AIDS was documented in a WPBT2 one-hour special titled "Tell Somebody: The New Face of HIV/AIDS," which aired on October 15, 2009.

 

 

"Tell Somebody: The New Face of HIV/AIDS"

 

 

The Miami Epidemic

Jessy Schuster of WPBT2’s “Pulse” hosts a roundtable discussion on the Miami Epidemic. The panel includes three renowned experts: former CDC researcher William W. Darrow, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work; Oscar Loynaz, M.D., Director, University Health Services; Kira Villamizar, M.P.H, Human Services Program Manager, Miami-Dade County Health Department. Allan Richards, Associate Dean, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the documentary’s executive producer, join the discussion. “The Miami Epidemic” is a one-hour program produced in response to the recent Centers for Disease Control and Preventionreport that Miami is #1 in new AIDS cases.

 

"The Miami Epidemic" part 1/2

 

"The Miami Epidemic" part 2/2